FOOTNOTES:
[104] Call: Our cause has been endorsed in the platforms of every political party. In order to determine how most expeditiously to press these newly won advantages to final victory this convention is called. Women workers in every rank of life and in every branch of service in increasing numbers are appealing for relief from the political handicap of disfranchisement.... Unmistakably the crisis of our movement has been reached. A significant and startling fact is urging American women to increased activity in their campaign for the vote. Across our borders three large Canadian provinces have granted universal suffrage to their women within the year. In every thinking American woman's mind the question is revolving: Had our forefathers tolerated the oppressions of autocratic George the Third and remained under the British flag would the women of the United States today, like their Canadian sisters, have found their political emancipation under the more democratic George the Fifth? American men are neither lacking in national pride nor approval of democracy and must in support of their convictions hasten the enfranchisement of women. To plan for the final steps which will lead to the inevitable establishment of nation-wide suffrage for the women of our land is the specific purpose of the Atlantic City Convention.
| Anna Howard Shaw, Honorary President. | ||
| Carrie Chapman Catt, President. | ||
| Jennie Bradley Roessing, First Vice-President. | ||
| Katharine Dexter McCormick, Second Vice-President. | ||
| Esther G. Ogden, Third Vice-President. | ||
| Hannah J. Patterson, Corresponding Secretary. | ||
| Mary Foulke Morrison, Recording Secretary. | ||
| Emma Winner Rogers, Treasurer. | ||
| Helen Guthrie Miller, | } | Auditors. |
| Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, | ||
[105] On June 1, a short time before the meeting of Republican and Democratic National Conventions, twenty-nine members of the Lower House of Congress from States where women vote, who wished the conventions to put woman suffrage in their platforms, had a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. The Representatives, both Democratic and Republican, who made brief arguments for the Federal Amendment were: Ariz., Carl Hayden; Cal., Denver S. Church, Charles H. Randall, William Kettner, John E. Raker; Colo., Benjamin C. Hilliard, Edward Keating, Edward T. Taylor; Ills., James T. McDermott, Adolph J. Sabath, James McAndrews, Frank H. Buchanan, Thomas Gallagher, Clyde H. Tavenner, Claudius U. Stone, Henry T. Rainey, Martin D. Foster, William Elza Williams (a member of the Judiciary Committee); Kans., Joseph Taggart (also a member), Dudley Doolittle, Guy T. Helvering, John R. Connelly, Jouett Shouse, William A. Ayres; Mont., John M. Evans, Tom Stout; Utah, James H. Mays; Wash., C. C. Dill.
Judge Raker acted as chairman and the remarkably strong presentation called out many questions from the anti-suffrage members of the Judiciary Committee.
[106] Senator Borah told them that the plank the National Suffrage Board had submitted, endorsing a Federal Amendment, was absolutely impossible but one could be obtained declaring for woman suffrage by State action. They accepted it, which was a wise thing to do, as had the Republican platform not favored woman suffrage per se the Democratic platform, adopted the following week, would not have done so.